Into the Deep: America, Whaling and the World

FAIN: TS-50093-08

City Lore: NY Center for Urban Folk Culture (New York, NY 10003-9345)
Eric Burns (Project Director: November 2007 to April 2010)

Scripting of a two-hour documentary film exploring the history of the American whaling industry from the 17th century through the late 19th century.

INTO THE DEEP -- a two-hour documentary film for national broadcast on public television in 2009, co-produced by Steeplechase Films, American Experience, and WGBH/Boston -- will tell the extraordinary story of the America whaling industry from it's 17th century origins in drift and shore whaling off the coast of Cape Cod, down through the great golden age of deep ocean whaling in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and on to the industry's demise in the decades following the American Civil War. Combining stunning archival material with powerful on-camera interviews, evocative live cinematography, dramatic reenactments, and underwater footage of whales at sea, the film will chronicle the spectacular rise and fall of the American whaling industry as America itself rose from an outpost of the British empire to one of the great nations of the world.